


Dying is easy, living is harder.

by magnetgirl



Category: Willow (1988)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: Sorsha learns to love the child she is entrusted with, and the child she once was.
Relationships: Madmartigan/Sorsha
Comments: 29
Kudos: 47
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Dying is easy, living is harder.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alianora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/gifts).



Sorsha was a disappointment. Her mother wanted a sorceress, an apprentice, a worthy legacy. She expected an intelligent, intuitive magic user content to spend weeks in the tower perfecting her craft. A quiet girl who loved to read and study and most importantly to listen to her mother-mentor. She wanted a girl with small fingers who would carefully cut wormwood and calamus root into tiny piles with a delicate silver knife charmed for spellwork. Bavmorda wanted a witch, but Sorsha was a warrior.

Sorsha had no talent for spells and no patience for books. She loved to run and jump and ride, to feel the wind in her hair and a weapon in her hand. She was clever at tracking, skilled with a sword, vicious with a knife. She was loud and she was wild and she was a disappointment.

Sorsha was eight when she realized it and it colored the rest of her life.

Spite is an excellent motivator and Sorsha had plenty. She was angry at everyone - her father for being a weakling who abandoned them, her mother for impossible expectations and sweeping judgement, Kael and the guard for snide comments and constant disdain. She used it all to grow strong and built an armor of cruelty to hide her insecurity. 

After the war she had to dismantle it.

Her prophecy fulfilled, Elora Danan was named Empress of Tir Asleen. At Fin Raziel's urging Sorsha was made Princess Regent. She was the only one in Elora's inner circle who had been exposed to the business of ruling a kingdom. Although she'd played a prominent role in the Bavmorda's downfall and had publicly repudiated her mother, the move unsettled many. They remembered her as child hunter, the heir apparent to darkness. She was accepted, but with no warmth and much misgiving, and there was a small but vocal faction who were angry she escaped punishment. Sorsha did not argue. She did not truly disagree.

Sometimes their anger fell on Madmartigan, as well. Before his association with Willow and Elora he had been a disgraced knight, a petty thief, a deserter, a womanizer. His defense of Tir Asleen restored his honor, and his defeat of General Kael won him praise and support, but the campaign against Sorsha reached him as well. On her lover's behalf, however, she was willing to fight. 

"I'm a monster but you are a hero."

Madmartigan smiled at the fury in her eyes, the flush of pique across her cheeks. He cupped her face in his hands and brushed her lips.

"You're not a monster. You were never a monster."

As weeks became months celebration turned to reclamation, mourning to rebuilding. Ser Arik Thaughbaer was given a ceremonial burial and interred atop a hill covered in flowers, the grave marked by a sign that declared him a hero in the war. The Galladoornens who fell under his command were identified and buried across the hillside. They drew a map of gravesites and plotted to design and build a proper memorial in time. Letters were sent to the families of the fallen, along with a handful of gold from the royal treasury.

The Nockmaar soldiers were piled high in the courtyard of Bavmorda's castle and cremated under a new moon. Sorsha wrote a list of all the names she knew but a third burned unidentified. The castle was stripped of artifacts and food, some furniture and most weapons, whatever might be useful to rebuild a kingdom, and then abandoned to looting. It would stand empty for twenty years, crumbling and haunted.

Many soldiers and servants returned home, but some few followed the infant empress and her protectors to their new home. Slowly they integrated with what remained of the original population. With magic and manpower Tir Asleen was reclaimed. The curse was broken, the trolls defeated, and restoration begun on the castle and surrounding lands. Sorsha explored the history of the shining city, the heritage her mother had kept from her, that she held no memory of, but felt kin to. 

"You are a princess of Tir Asleen", Raziel affirmed. "Your father was noble and true, admired by his people. But he had a gentle heart, easily swayed."

The king had not survived Bavmorda's curse, but those who had remembered him, and fondly. Some even remembered his young daughter. Sorsha wished she remembered them.

Raziel spoke with affection, and a sorrow Sorsha was beginning to understand. In another life the sorceress might have been her mother. But for a gentle heart. 

Sorsha had no role models for motherhood. Madmartigan took to child rearing as easily as he swung a sword, by instinct based in a foundation of care. He had been raised in love and safety. Sorhsa's earliest memories were of her mother's frustration, and babies had always been the enemy.

"I don't know how to … anything," she admitted to Raziel.

"I was an exiled possum for my fertile years, child, I have nothing to teach you."

Sorsha wrote to Willow, a long letter about their progress rebuilding Tir Asleen and updates on Elora. _She misses you, we all do._ She inquired after his family and if he had any advice on raising a child, shyly admitting he was the only parent she knew to ask.

As a girl she'd learned by observation. She invited families into the castle but none accepted, Bavmorda's dungeons full of expectant mothers too fresh a memory. So she ventured into the village to watch mothers with their children. She tried to be discreet but her bright hair was hard to hide and the population too small. They noticed her spying and ran. Rumors sprang up she was reverting to her child hunter past, following in her mother's footsteps. Desperate she asked Raziel for a different kind of help, one she was suited for.

The sorceress transformed Sorsha into a hawk, a raptor with long broad wings to fly over the countryside. She perched in trees, on stables, bridges and stone walls, and watched families. Few traveled during Bavmorda's reign, particularly women with young children, young daughters. With the witch defeated trade was reopening. Children played in the streets as their parents haggled and mothers gossiped with babies at their breast. Sorsha watched and listened and tried to learn but no formula appeared.

It became routine to wake early and fly past the walls of Tir Asleen, a different direction each day, to survey the land under rule of Empress Elora. She never quite caught her quarry of parenting secrets, but she noticed the kingdom was in disrepair. Bavmorda spent neither money nor attention on the world outside her castle and the battles against her took their toll on more than people. The result was broken roads, crumbling mills, and bridges too dangerous to cross. The merchants and peasants crossed them anyway, because the cost to go around was too great. In the guise of a red tailed hawk Sorsha took note of each necessary repair and sent builders and engineers to fix them. She prioritized reconstruction in the villages over the castle and slowly people started to look at the Princess Regent differently. Slowly she started to receive envoys asking for help and did not have to depend on her morning sojourns in the sky to find what needed mending. Slowly they started to work together to restore what Bavmorda had shattered, the kingdom, and their trust.

Elora grew. She started walking, and her babbles tended toward words. She had an entire castle of servants and protectors, a team of nannies, a tutor on call some five years too early, maids and chefs and guards, but Madmartigan was easily her favorite and he delighted in it. He divided his day between the guard, the girl, and supporting Sorsha's initiatives and was as tired as she when they fell into bed at night. They hadn't formalized their relationship to Elora or each other, but he accepted the informal title of consort and handled the duties of captain of guard. They looked like family, assumptions could easily be made by a neighboring kingdom without prior knowledge of or experience within their lands. It was simpler to do nothing than to allow a forum for dissent.

As the young empress grew, it became easier for Sorsha to relate to her. An infant was a reminder of Bavmorda's vendetta; Elora was becoming an individual. Raziel was convinced the child would grow to be a sorceress, but Elora was an explorer. She scooted and crawled and pointed where she demanded to be carried. Madmartigan was happy to comply. Sorsha followed, watching his ease and her joy. She usually hung back, the fear of negative attention a safe excuse for her lack of confidence.

The royal stables were Sorsha's favorite hiding space. Madmartigan and Raziel respected her need for a safe space for contemplation and steered others away as needed - but Elora was another matter. She wanted to investigate everywhere. Madmartigan carried her over with a glance to Sorsha, mostly concern, some curiosity. She flashed a small smile that widened when Elora reached both hands toward a horse, her whole face alight with excitement.

"Daw!" _Down,_ the girl demanded, pointing at the floor. "Daw!!" She screwed up her face when Madmartigan refused to comply, nor go within arms reach of the animals. Sorsha laughed, startling both of them. She stepped closer, between the duo and a pretty red mare. The horse huffed, but clearly trusted her. Sorsha pulled a vegetable from her coat pocket. Elora gasped with wide eyes as the mare ate it out of her hand.

"I started riding when I was very little," Sorsha said, shyly. She didn't speak of her childhood often, and her mother had disapproved. But Elora's enthusiasm was familiar. "I loved the outdoors."

She met Madmartigan's eyes and gestured for him to bring the child closer. When he did she took Elora's hand and guided her fingers towards the animal's muzzle. 

"Here, hold your hand close but don't touch, let her come to you." The horse sniffed their hands, her breath tickled. After a moment she nudged Elora's fingers, and the girl burbled with glee.

"Horse," Sorsha told her.

"Ssss," Elora hissed.

In the evenings Madmartigan regaled Elora with stories of magic, adventure and romance. He seemed to know hundreds, or had a knack for making them up. He often found Sorsha just outside the nursery, listening.

"You can come in." Sorsha was growing braver with the child but still shied from bedtime.

"You have a routine. I don't want to disrupt it."

"She would like it," he countered. "She's heard all my stories. You grew up in a castle, must know amazing…" She paled as he spoke. "What's wrong?"

She blinked. "I don't know any … happy stories." Bavmorda's stories were prophecy and warnings, tales of a demon child destined to destroy them. Those stories had driven her actions for years.

The knight frowned. He wanted to ask her to elaborate but sensed her fear and reached for her hand.

"Well, then, you should definitely come in and listen."

With time and patience, Sorsha learned the stories well enough to help tell them, and every night they fell asleep tangled in each other's arms.

The letter arrived at midday but Sorsha hadn't a moment to herself until Elora was finally asleep. Willow apologized for the late response but it was harvest and when he wasn't tending the fields he was apprenticed to The High Aldwin. He told her all the news of his family and his village and hoped to visit with them soon. To address her queries, he included a journal his wife kept when Ranon and Mims were babes. _But there is one thing Elora needs most and I know you can provide it in abundance; I would not have left her with you otherwise._

Madmartigan cocked his head. Her brow was furrowed and her fingers white around the letter. "What's the one thing?"

"Love."

He grinned. "That's easy."

"Yes." She swallowed, folded the paper and tucked it into Kaia's journal. "Elora is very easy to love."

Sorsha was not.

Madmartigan stepped close and wrapped his arms around her.

"I love you. I love you every minute of every day."

She didn't answer, didn't move, and she felt his arms tense against her body. She tipped her eyes up to catch his flustered expression. He didn't mean to scare her, or to imply he believed she wasn't easy to love. He looked so worried and lost and she hated her insecurity. She hadn't felt so vulnerable since she was a young child but this whole year it was a constant. 

Madmartigan grabbed her face and kissed her, so sudden it should feel violent but instead his touch was gentle. He cupped her cheeks, whispered, "Sorsha, you're my..."

His breath tickled her lips.

"Your sun, your moon, your starlit sky?" she completed in a hushed voice, tinged with both sorrow and joy.

He shook his head but not to negate it.

"My family. My home." He held her like something precious. "I never - _belonged_ anywhere but you… I belong with you."

"What if it goes away?"

She blinked at tears. It was her deepest fear. Listening each night to his fairy stories about princesses and curses and true love, she worried what might happen to the family she'd found. If they were brought together by magic, do they need magic to sustain the relationship? She'd learned when she was barely five, she has no access to magic. 

"Never."

He said it so simply, with neither doubt nor regret. He brushed her hair our of her face and pressed his lips to the track of her tears. He saw past all her armor and loved her anyway. And in that moment she realized, she was enough. 


End file.
